Lost Moments of Faith & Love
by Miki Mouse in Blue Jeans
Summary: There are always some moments that demand to happen, no matter how short, how long, or how irrelevant they are. This is a compilation of the moments that did not quite make it into the Faith & Love Series, but still demand to be told.
1. Welcome

_Lost Moments of Faith & Love_

 _There are always some moments that demand to happen, no matter how short, how long, or how irrelevant they are. This is a compilation of the moments that did not quite make it into the Faith & Love Series, but still demand to be told._

* * *

Hello lovely readers,

I have decided to post a few excerpts from the Faith & Love Series, now that Book One is complete. Below, I have complied a contents list, which will be updated as often as a chapter is added. This collection of writing will include outtakes, as well as scenes that made it into the stories, but are written in a different point of view.

I hope that these fill in the gaps I've left hanging wide open, and make you enjoy the story even more.

* * *

 **Contents**

1\. Last Moments, First Breath – _Faith & Love_ Chapters 1, 2 and 3 ( **Esme POV** ) - _This is slightly different to the original Faith & Love chapter, but chapter 3 has been since updated._

 _2._ Esme Evenson d. 1921 \- _Finding Home_ Chapter 7 ( **Edward POV** ) - _A deleted scene where Edward visits Esme's grave._


	2. Last Moments, First Breath

_Last Moments, First Breath_

 _Ashland Wisconsin, April 1921_

 _Esme_

The world around me twisted and warped in wisps of dark colours that my eyes had long since adjusted to. The sky above me fell from my reach as I extended my arms to grab it one last time, the sky I'd always loved so much, the sky I'd always craved to touch was slipping through my fingers and I knew I'd never reach it again. The breath was knocked from my body as gravity pulled and tugged me down, but my mind was numb from the pain. There would be no more second-guessing – this was it. All I wanted was the sky, all I wanted was to be a part of that dark, moonless, cloudy night, to be flying through the thick clouds, feeling the mist on my face instead of the turbulent downpour that fell to the ground just like I did. I'd jumped off forwards, but turned around backwards for a reason, a reason I had come to regret. I thought it would be nice to watch the sky as I fell, but I realised at some point that I was going the wrong way – like the tree. It was just like the tree. I was going the wrong way. I needed to be going into the sky, not a way from it.

No. Panic. Panic. Panic. Red-hot panic, searing through my veins. The shortness of breath, the clouds closing in as they flew farther and farther away. My stomach wasn't with me, but it felt sick as I fell, I wasn't quite sure where it was, if it was already on the ground, or still up on the ledge of the cliff, but my brain was telling me that everything was wrong about the sensation of falling. I needed something beneath my back, everything was wrong. Chaos. Chaos everywhere. Chaos in the sky, chaos in my head, chaos on the ground. Chaos in my life. Nothing. Nothing but chaos, when all I'd ever wanted, all I'd ever prayed for was peace. Peace. Peace. Piece. Would I end in one piece? I had never been in one piece. Not since my baby... No. Pain. Pain. Pain. Too much pain. Breathe, breathe, bre…

...

...

…athe.

Breathe.

Breathe?

Pain.

Pain.

Pain.

Too much pain.

Red-hot, searing pain. Not panic… pain. What on Earth? My breathing came hard and fast as flames licked at my ankles and my wrists, and my neck! Breathing was a hard task, but it had been easier than before, it kept on getting easier and easier as confusion twisted my stomach… My stomach…. I wasn't falling. My eyes shot open, but the dark world took time to adjust to, and it seemed to be moving so fast. The sky was still above me, but it was interrupted by something uneven, unsymmetrical. What was that? There was a dark shadow above me too, a dark shadow that shouldn't have been there. I wasn't falling, but what was I doing? Trees. The uneven, unsymmetrical things, they were trees. Forest. Forest. I was in a forest. Why was I in a forest? Did heaven have forests? Did hell have forests? And what was this shadow? And what was this burning? My heart began to pick up it's pace, I could feel it beating in my chest with panic. Panic. Red-hot panic. The worst thought came into my mind. The worst, the very worst, the worst of them all. Had it been a dream? My son, his death, the cliff? Had it been a dream, and I was merely in Columbus, being carried by Charles to some place far away where he would finally rid of me?

The pain was spreading from my ankles to my feet, and up my legs. From my wrists to my hands, and up my arms. From my neck to my head, and down to my chest. The red-hot searing pain. The fire so much dire than the sandpaper pain of being particularly parched.

A whimper escaped my chest as the flames divulged the coolness of death that my jump – I was sure that was real – had filled my body with. I was certain that was the coolness of death, and so now, what were the flames?

"Shh, you're okay," a distantly familiar, far away voice murmured, "You're going to be okay now."

It wasn't Charles, my painful heart fluttered with hope. I knew the voice. I knew the voice. I knew the voice. My heartbeat raced as much as it could in its seemingly fragile state. I focussed on the shadow above, trying to get my dying eyes to harness enough light to make sense of the image and allow the kindles of hope simmering in my chest to erupt in flames like those in my neck.

The speeding landscape kept passing in it's dark shades, but the leaves above began to thin, and I could see wisps of silver clouds above, silver clouds illuminated in moonlight. When we cleared the cover it was almost as if I was falling in some kind of daze, the pain was still there in my neck, and my feet and my hands, but peace was there also, for the moonlight lit up the blonde hair, and soft features of the man of my dreams and I knew that if I wasn't dying – like I was sure that I was dying – he was taking me somewhere to fix me. The doctor. _My_ doctor. I thought he was a dream. Maybe he was a dream. I'd read somewhere that in moments of dire need, the brain conjures up happy memories to comfort and to ca – _pain_. Pain. Pain. _Pain_. Red-hot searing pain, moving from my neck and my chest into my veins, pain, pain, _pain._ Another whimper escaped but I almost didn't hear it over the rushing of blood in my ears as the adrenaline tried to save me.

"The pain will get worse before it gets better, but then it will be gone forever," the imaginary doctor murmured, "I promise you this, Esme, I promise." His voice was filled with enough desperation as we flew through the moonlit field, to distract me from the burning that was rapidly spreading throughout my body. I looked back to him with his golden hair, turned silver in the light from the brightest thing in the night sky, and his dark eyes watched me with as much pain and worry that drenched his tone. I tired to ignore the pain, the burning, the fire, I tried to ignore it enough to pay attention to the hallucination my brain had conjured up in attempt to comfort me, just enough to speak to it, on the off change, with the slightest hope, that he was real.

"Doctor Cullen?" I breathed somehow, "Is that you?"

His face fell back down to me, but as we ducked into shade again, I couldn't see his expression, "I'm here Esme, it's me. I'm here and you're okay."

His voice was filled with as much care as I remembered it, but as a figment of my imagination, of course that would be the way.

"It hurts," I replied feebly, hoping in this dream he had some kind of power to heal like he had before.

"I know," his smooth voice replied with pain, "But it won't last forever." His promise had an edge to it, which I tried to place but the pain was all I could think of.

The pain.

The pain.

The red-hot searing, burning, fires of death and wrongdoing kind of pain. I'd long since given up hope in the existence of a God, but perhaps the churchgoers were right, and for my hesitance I was being subject to the eternal heat of…

Pain.

...

...

...

I was consciously aware of the fact I was screaming. The fire had spread throughout my entire body. It engulfed every corner, every crevice, every inch, and it ate me alive. I was certain that if I wasn't dead before, I was certainly dying now. So I screamed harder, longer, louder, wilder, and still nothing stopped. I must have dreamed the doctor, surely if he were real he'd have saved me all ready. Hope drained from my body in the fashion that I wished the fire would, and so I settled into the basking in the waves of pain washing over me – both physically and emotionally. I thought of my son, and the cliff, again, and again, and again. Round and round, and round and round.

I briefly wondered if time still existed, or perhaps the sun had engulfed the planet and I was slowly burning in the heavenly object I'd once loved so dearly. Time, however, somehow seemed to pass. I wasn't sure how long it had been, but there were voices floating somewhere around me – it was hard to hear them over my own screams, but I couldn't quite manage to stop yelling.

"How are you both?" A familiar voice wondered – the doctor, he was still here.

"I'm swell," replied another voice, a different voice, a strange voice, "She's doing well too, considering her circumstances." He almost spoke too quietly for me to hear.

"What is she thinking about?" Doctor Cullen wondered from far away. I was amazed that my brain kept on persisting with the hallucination of him, for he couldn't be real. If he was, why was he still here?

"You, now," the other voice told him, "But before she was thinking about a baby."

Their words didn't truly make sense; the pain was too much to bear for sense to be derived. The thought of the pain only made it worse – it only made me focus on it more. My ears allowed me a soft reprieve, as a quiet voice spoke closer to me, "It will be over soon, Esme. I'm so sorry."

Perhaps I would have lingered on the torture in his tone but I couldn't distract myself from the fire that claimed me as it's own.

It didn't stop. Did time still pass? Or was I now left to float in infinity? All I wanted was for it to end. Finally after far too much time to count, I found I could control the screaming. The first time I stopped, the silence was deafening, and I almost began screaming just to fill it, but there was a voice – still faraway but not as far – that began to murmur gently to me.

"Esme?" He spoke so quietly, "Can you hear me? It's Doctor Cullen." His voice was so timid, I wondered why he seemed so hesitant, perhaps he thought I'd start screaming again, "Esme, I'm so sorry, but there are some things I have to tell you – and I fear that you won't like them."

The sweet, and caring doctor that I remembered from Columbus then began to weave the darkest story I had ever heard in my entire life, and it almost seemed as though it started at the beginning of time. He told me of vampires, and werewolves, of death, and bloodlust, and murder. He told me of a young man born in the sixteen hundreds, who was burdened with this life, but wouldn't accept it – it didn't take me long to realize he was talking about himself. He told me of years alone in the dark, trying, and trying, and trying to help out, but never being able to. I listened as carefully as I could, quietly… silently… I couldn't even hear my breathing.

But the pain became too much again, and I couldn't do anything but scream at him.

"Stop it," I begged, "Please, stop the fire. Let me die now. It's okay, I'm ready to go."

I did not get any reprieve from the pain, but a quiet and sad voice far away from me did whisper a broken hearted apology, "I'm sorry."

Silence came again, as I'd come to find it would. This time it came with feeling – there was something soft beneath my body, something cool in my hand.

"Esme?" The same melodic voice murmured, closer this time, "Can you hear me? It's Carlisle… Doctor Cullen."

I turned to face him, and for the first time in the burning eternity, I opened my eyes to see how real my hallucination could really be. It was better than I remembered him, with his golden hair, and his soft smile – but his eyes were black, with dark purple rings beneath him. He didn't look as though he'd slept in days.

"Doctor Cullen?" My voice was foreign and cracked; I decided to indulge myself, wondering how well my imagination would fare in my state, "Why are you here?"

He stroked my hand with his thumb and murmured, "I found you at the hospital."

Part of me was really becoming to believe that he wasn't just something I had cooked up in my head. Knowing I didn't have long left before the pain became to much again, I cut to the most important question, "The pain, will it stop?"

He nodded softly, "Yes, it will stop. Soon."

"Am I dying?" I wondered, voicing the question next on my list.

"No, my dear," he murmured, continuing the soothing motion that I could only just feel, "You are not dying."

The fire, I noticed, began to cool in my fingertips and my toes, "Did you save me?"

He sighed sadly, "I stopped you from dying, Esme, but I have not saved you."

The fire in my chest began to heat up as my hands and feet cooled down, I groaned at the extra pain, hoping the Doctor was right, and it would end, but honestly believing it would kill me first.

I let out another scream, which was muffled with a sob, and their quiet voices continued on, but my attention was taken with the pain seeming to center in on my heart. I knew, this was it, I was gone.

I stopped screaming. In my last minutes, I didn't want that to be what I heard. I wanted to hear the doctor speak again, but it was the other man's voice I heard, "The pain is receding." He said as though he knew what I was feeling.

It was hard to hear the doctor's voice over my thudding heart, which was ready to give way.

"The transformation is almost complete," he murmured.

My beating heart stole my attention away from the doctor's voice, and a few whines escaped my lips stopping me from listening to whatever it was they had said. I let out one more scream as my heart pumped faster than I'd ever known it to go before – faster than it did, filled with panic on the cliff, faster than it did, filled with panic at the tree, faster than it did, filled with panic with Cha…

Silence.

The world was engulfed in complete silence. No. Not complete silence. There was a ticking from somewhere beneath me, it was rhythmic – a clock. There was rustling somewhere far away, although it was muted, it was the unmistakeable sound of trees swaying in a breeze. There was the putting from an engine not too far away, and the breathing of two bodies, quietly near me.

I opened my eyes in a flash. It seemed quicker than I had moved, ever before, but I guess having spent an eternity burning, time would now seem shorter to me. I was not prepared for what I would see. Above me was a thousand tiny filaments of dust, twirling and dancing around in peace, beyond that was a dusty old pink canopy of the four poster bed I was laying on. It was odd to look at all of this, my eyes seemed clearer than they ever had before. I could see the shadows in the corners of the canopy, but it was almost as if they weren't there either, for they were not dark, just dimmed, it was quite remarkable actua – _wait_.

The clock. The ticking clock. The ticking clock wasn't ticking. It had ticked once. _Once_. But it was a clock, it sounded just like a clock. What on Earth?

Suddenly, an all consuming feeling on confusion filled me, hitting me like a horse travelling a hundred miles an hour, it filled me from head to toe, with a sensation so foreign and new to me. I didn't understand why my toes were confused, and that made me angry. The moment the anger – a heat most unlike the fire – filled my being, a growl rumbled from my chest – startling me. There was shuffling from where the quiet breathing was, and in my startled state I didn't know what to do, so my body acted reflexively. In an instant that I could not define, I moved from my spot lying on the bed, into a crouch where I was ready to pounce from the soft fabric at one of the two men that filled the room. I could feel a growl rumbling in my chest. The feeling alerted me to another feeling, a worse feeling – a burning. It wasn't a burning like the flames that had engulfed me, but rather, a real parched, itchy feeling that needed to be quenched immediately. I looked around wildly for a drink to quench it, but the room held nothing at all… there was, however, the most enticing smell in the room. It made the need in my throat even more pronounced. What was it? I couldn't see it. I needed to find it. I looked around once more, more carefully this time but my thoughts were interrupted when I caught sight of the doctor.

I had thought him beautiful before, but I had not seen him half as clearly as I was seeing him now. He shone like the sun, but his black eyes and purple rims beneath them worried me. I was filled with an all-consuming need to help him. But that need did not overpower the need to quench the fire in my throat, it just added to it. It sat beside it on the shelf. I stared right at the doctor; my mind was split between the two things – the thirst and the man. I didn't know how that was possible, but I knew neither one mattered more than the other.

I was only barely aware that the room was filled with silence, and he was waiting for me to speak, but it seemed that he was barely aware I was not filled with the need to speak.

So it was him, who broke the silence, "Esme?" His voice was velvet smooth, like a heaven for my ears to hear. His eyes widened when he spoke, and his eyebrows lifted ever so slightly, as if he was cautious about addressing me. _Why would he be?_ I noticed then and only then that his hands were open, palms facing me, in front of his body as though he was attempting to show me that he was no real threat. My brow furrowed for a moment, before I realised he was waiting for me to reply.

"Doctor Cullen," I whispered, in a voice that was not my own. A part of my brain marvelled at the sound that came out of my mouth, while another continued to speak, "How strange it is to see you again."

He dropped his hands a little and smiled, "Indeed."

It was all very well to be seeing him again, and quiet frankly I was very happy indeed, but the fire in my throat was raging on and it was annoying me so. I was fighting down the urge to wail like a banshee and run at him demanding he fix it.

"Why am I here?" I managed to get out, as my hand drifted up to my throat, wondering if I could just rip it out. As Doctor Cullen replied, my hand fell on my chest. Oddly, I couldn't feel a heartbeat there, but that didn't matter, I needed to tear my burning throat out. "Why am I not dead?" I wondered, my voice rising an octave in pain, "And why do I not have a heartbeat?" The questions coming out of my mouth were not the ones I needed an answer to the most, " _And why is my throat burning?_ " My voice was now a great deal many more octaves higher than it should have been, and I could tell from Carlisle's slightly worried eyes that my behaviour was alarming, but the burn, the burn, the burn… it was beginning to consume my thoughts, all of them, even the ones that had been fixated on the dust dancing around the doctors hair like a halo, or the thousands of shining little lights that made his dark eyes not so dark, or the harsh lines of his cheekbones that the gentleness of his brow softened to make him appear kinder, or the… _burn_.

A whining sound escaped my lips as my hand began to claw at my neck, the delectable smell floated around in the air filling my senses with an all consuming need to pounce at something, but the only thing there was to pounce at was the doctor and I didn't want to do that, but I needed to do something because my throat was burning and there was nothing in this room to quench the thirst that was sending me into a frenzied state of I didn't even know what.

"She's needs to hunt."

There was, not quite, a beat of silence after the second voice spoke before my head whipped around to see the owner of the voice that surprised me, and I was filled with the urge to choose one of three options: to fight, to flee, or to fret. In that not quite beat of silence, my mind was made up, it all happened so quickly, I felt a little left behind. I think I chose a mixture of the latter two, for the next thing I knew I'd dashed backwards, my back coming into contact with the wall, while I watched the other man with caution and fear.

"It's all right, Esme," he murmured in his smooth voice as I took in his odd reddish-brown hair, and golden eyes, "We're not here to hurt you. We're here to help you, my name is Edward."

His words were all I needed to reassure me in that moment, my attention automatically turning back to the inferno in my throat.

"We need to take you to hunt, but first, this is important." The boy named Edward spoke cautiously, as the doctor watched on with interest, "Did you listen to what Carlisle – Doctor Cullen – told you while you were burning? All of his stories?"

Clutching my throat I looked between the two men, still braced against the wall, and nodded.

"Do you believe him?" Edward wondered, his golden eyes were eager with curiosity, his body angled forward, leaning in slightly in a gesture I remembered vaguely. Of a blonde doctor ten years ago, looking at me with bright golden eyes, curious at my words, curious at my soul. I remembered the smile, comforting, and exciting, I remembered that expression, and I knew exactly where the boy named Edward had got it from. My eyes drifted away from the bronze haired boy, and fell on the doctor who hadn't changed in the slightest – aside from his tired dark eyes – in ten whole years. If what he said was true, the dark tales of death and blood and murder and horror, then it would make sense that he had not changed at all in an entire decade, for he clamed to be immortal – frozen in time from the moment he was changed on a cold night in a dirty street in London during the seventeenth century. He gave me a timid smile, encouraging. Although the frightened, startled part of me was crying out to say 'no,' somewhere deep down inside I knew that the honest answer was not that.

"Yes," the boy named Edward nodded, "She believes. All right. We need to hunt." The boy moved forward a single step, but I wasn't prepared for his advance, the doctor threw out an arm to stop him as I sunk down into a crouch with a hiss. Where was all this aggression coming from?

"Not so quickly, Edward. We have to wait for Esme to make the first move," Carlisle looked from Edward to me, his cautionary expression melting effortlessly into a friendly smile, "Esme, I understand your throat is hurting?"

I nodded, desperation claiming me, as my hand went back up to my neck.

"Would you like to come with us, to quench your thirst?" He wondered, slowly extending a hand out to me.

I eyed the hand carefully, and tried to think of a reason not to trust him. I could think of a few, but I could think of more reasons why I _should_ trust him. So I slowly straightened out of the crouch, and slowly walked to the edge of the bed with caution. He didn't withdraw his hand as I approached, which surprised me a little, so when my feet were securely on the ground, with great care, I reached out to place my hand in his. The static energy between the two buzzed, but when my hand fell into his, and my eyes managed to make their way up to meet his black orbs, the first calmness I'd felt since waking up washed over me, and he smiled a small, encouraging smile, which I tried to return, but the burning in my throat turned it into a grimace coupled with a whimper.

"Let's go," he murmured quietly, gingerly stepping forward and leading me out of the room.

The hallway was dark, narrow, and mostly empty. I wondered if the two men lived there alone, the house was obviously lacking the gentler touch of a woman. There was a quiet laugh from behind me, and my head whipped around to look at Edward, who followed a short way behind. He offered me a small smile, but the curiosity I felt was awfully overpowering.

"How did you know my answer to your question earlier, when I didn't even say it aloud?" I wondered, coming to a halt in the narrow way.

Edward eyed me cautiously for a moment, before answering honestly and simply, "I can read thoughts, that's just me though. No one else."

"Why?" The words came out of my mouth before I thought better of them, then the burning in my throat distracted me once again, "Never mind. Can we go, please?" I wondered to Doctor Cullen.

He smiled and nodded, before walking forward, "I should tell you though, Esme. We live life a little differently than most. We don't prey on humans, we drink the blood of animals only."

I nodded; I couldn't see why that he spoke as if hunting animals was not the more enticing prospect of the two.

Edward laughed, "You'll see when you smell them."

As we reached the top of the stairs, it finally dawned on me what was happening. I was a vampire. A blood-sucking vampire. Fear filled my veins, something in me telling me to attack anything and everything that I could reach in vengeance for causing me to be this way. Forever, they said. Forever a vampire, drinking blood. The flames in my throat were a testament to how horrid that would be. When I'd first seen Doctor Cullen a part of me was happy to be with him again, but in this life? Could that ever be a good thing? Could this life bring with it happiness? Or was this just a version of some horrid land for those who had wronged so terribly in their life they were damned?

It was written all over the young boy's face – I could see that he believed whole heartedly that I had just survived the fires of hell. That was, after all, the simplest, and most obvious way to look at it. At first, I agreed with him. But here's the thing I realised, walking down the creaky steps of the doctor's cold, and scary home, right at the moment I turned back around and caught sight of the gentle face of the man whose hand I held – The Ancient Greeks had many a myth, stories of fantastic tings, of good things, and bad things, and everything in between. They believed that Hades was the God of the underworld; in many beliefs this would mean he lived solely in a realm of fire. But it does not do to forget that the Greeks had another myth about fire, 'twas one about fire and re-birth. For out of the flames after death, rises the most magnificent of all things – red embers and orange flames of the fire turn into crimson feathers and sunrise coloured plumes of the phoenix. The most magnificent and majestic of all. That should be something I never forget – It is not what you have got, but rather, what you make of it.

* * *

 _A.N. Hello lovely readers, just a short note on this chapter. This chapter takes during chapters 2 and 3 of Faith & Love. I know it's different to what occurred in chapter 3 of Faith & Love but it's always been my intention to adjust it as I have become more of a confident writer. I know a few of you have said it, and I definitely agree, that the newborn Esme in the original Faith & Love was a little too controlled, a little too much like Bella. So, although she's not wild in this one, I hope that it's more believable! You'll notice that chapter 3 was changed accordingly to this new version._

 _This was actually really fun to write from Esme's point of view, because in the beginning when she is human, her mind is kind of all over the place, so I got to just write words that didn't particularly make grand statements, or even sense in places, but rather, it was more of an emotional and artistic journey of this hard time. The same with her transformation. I've tried to work it so as she grows more and more coherent, those choppy sentences and repeated words stop, and the more philosophical and meaningful sentences used by coherent Esme in Faith & Love come back, and show that she's in charge of her mind. The thirst part was fun to write too, I usually like to have Esme as a controlled, passive person who does not want to be wild like this, but of course, she can't control it. So I hope you enjoyed. _

_I know a lot of people like to listen to music while writing/reading, and for this chapter, I did, and I thought I'd leave you with the names I listened to, so if you want to re-read, it might add to the ambience of the piece. It's all instrumental emotive music, by Hanz Zimmer (from the Batman 'The Dark Knight Rises' soundtrack, funnily enough.)_

 _During Esme's jump – 'Why Do We Fall?',_

 _After She Jumps – 'The Fire Rises',_

 _And after the line '_ I was being subject to an eternal heat of…Pain.' _– Born in Darkness._

 _And after the line "_ You'll see when you smell them _" I went back to 'Why Do We Fall?'_

 _Oh, and don't worry, Finding Home is coming soon._


	3. Esme Evenson d 1921

_Deleted Scene: "Esme Evenson d. 1921"_

 _Finding Home Chapter 7: On the Prowl_

 _Columbus, Ohio, 1927_

 _Edward_

I wandered for a little while longer, before finding a nice patch of shade underneath a tree by the river as the sun burst through the cloud cover once more as it set.

Twilight came slowly, but it lingered for a while as I remained beneath the tree by the lake. By the time that dusk set in, the city was quiet, and with the threat of the sun gone for hours on end, I decided to start my nightly activates with something I'd contemplated doing for weeks... I wanted to visit Esme's grave.

The graveyard wasn't far from the lake, but with the cover of darkness, I was able to get there in record time at vampire speed over rooftops and down empty alleyways.

Night-time always seemed to provide an appropriate background for cemeteries, making them more eerie and frightening for visitors. It was a hard feat to accomplish however, for a graveyard to frighten a vampire. The dead and the undead don't really fear one another, as a general rule. So I wandered down the lines of headstones quite at ease as I searched for a stone that would signify the people who were supposed to love her, memorialised my mother figure. The faraway trees swayed in the breeze that had persisted to blow all day, and I came to realize that finding Esme's empty grave in a maze of tombstones was kind of like finding Charles Evenson in a group of men who shared his initials. But, as I hoped I'd have with finding Charles, I had great success with finding where the memory of Esme lay.

And it made the venom in my veins boil, when I found it, and I read what was inscribed upon the tombstone's surface.

 _Esme Evenson_

 _d. 1921_

Many headstones were just as simple as hers, except hers was not blank for simplicity's sake, or because that's how it would best suit her. It was empty, blank, and meaningless, because she meant nothing to _him_. The anger began to flood all of my senses once again, boiling in my stomach, blistering my brain A low grumble escaped my lips from the rumbling in my chest and in the heat of the moment, as I pictured what little I knew of his face my foot smashed through the empty headstone with a crack and a resounding bang, sending shattered stone flying in a hundred different directions.

It took me a moment of utter silence, and inner anger, a moment of pinching my nose and taking deep breaths to calm down after I completely destroyed the insulting memorial site. A low growl rumbled in my chest waking up the sleeping birds that roosted in the trees. Sensing danger they flew away in their flocks – silly animals, even if I didn't hunt humans, birds were too tiny to get a satisfying meal out of. I ran through a hundred ideas of what to do next as I listened to the sounds of wings slapping bodies grow distant, and after a few minutes of simply sanding beside a pile of rubble thinking, I came up with an idea of how to properly remember Esme.

I headed off toward the church to begin my idea, but before I could reach the little stone building, by total chance or maybe fate, I came across the two graves of Esme's grandparents, whom she adored greatly. Noting they had numerous empty plots beside them, I grinned to myself and carried on toward the church. When I reached the steps, I pulled the phonebook and a pen out of my bag. Jotting down a note for whomever managed the graveyard on a blank page, I fashioned another page into an envelope and slipped the note with money into it. I slipped it under the door of the church and then headed out toward town.

I sprinted down the streets of Columbus full speed, scaling a building and jumping onto the rooftops at the first chance I got. I headed toward a memorialist's store that I'd spotted in town earlier. The small shop wasn't too far way, but it was all locked up for the night. This made things easier, there was no one who had to see me, and there was no one I had to answer to. It was easy to break into the little store, and no one would ever know I'd been there unless I wanted them to. I quickly ducked through the front room, out to the back where the blank headstones were kept. I grabbed a very basic one that was sitting on the bench, and pulled out some more cash from my wallet, and wrote down a quick note for the owner on some spare paper nearby. Tucking the headstone under my arm, I dashed back out of the store, and climbed up to the rooftops once more. It was harder to climb while holding the stone, but I managed. I ran back to the cemetery with the new tombstone under my arm, flying over the rooftops too fast for human eyes to see. Then, once I'd navigated my way back to the corner where her grandparents lay, I carefully placed the stolen headstone down upon the empty plot next to where her grandmother. I secured it in the ground, and then gazed at the empty face of stone wondering what would be best for the stone to say. After a while, I came up with an inscription that I knew would make her smile. It was a little unconventional, but then again, so was she. After I finished carving the stone with my nail, I leaned back, to gaze upon my handiwork.

 _Beloved_

 _Esme Anne Platt_

 _1895 – 1921_

' _A heart does not need to beat in order to love'_

Satisfied, I moved to stand up, until it occurred to me that there was another human who needed to be remembered just like Esme did. I stared at her new gravestone for a short while, thinking about how to discreetly give memorial to the little human that was lost in 1921. I had to do it small, and where no one would see, for no one knew about him, and that's the way Esme wanted it to be. Around the side of the base, where the grass would cover, I bent down, and once again, with my nail, I carved a string of words that read:

 _Timothy John Platt, 1921 – 1921, 'Never forgotten'_

Knowing that would mean a lot to her, I then covered it up with grass wondering if anyone would find it. I imagined curious people in a hundred years spying the words at the side, and coming up with stories as to what happened to the young woman who died and the child that seemed to have gone with her.

I dusted the dirt off my knees when I stood up, and spent a moment longer staring at the tombstone above an empty grave, before turning around and heading off to begin the end of the terror that let to the death of the young woman whom that tombstone remembered.

* * *

 _A.N. This was just a little extra that I loved from chapter 7 of Finding Home, but I wasn't sure if it fit into the story, so I decided to post it in this_ _collection here._

 _Hoped you liked the little sweeter Edward moment._


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